A further response to comments left in "uselessness"

[solarbird]

This is a response to comments left here, but were too long to post as comments, and I didn't feel like breaking it into a bunch of different parts. You can read the original post and replies to it for context, or hey, you can dive right in.

I'm just saying it is insane and counterproductive to ignore what progress has been made, that we should just throw out everything and start over

Obviously, as I am calling for new parties, I could not disagree more.

What the Democratic party is doing, what the DP has done in this area, is institutionalise the unlimited Chief Executive concept. By passing this warrantless surveillance bill while in control of the House, by handing the administration carte blanche permission to spy on the phone calls and email messages of Americans on American soil as long as there is reason to suspect that maybe somebody on the receiving list might be a foreigner, with no check, balance, or supervision, the Democrats have made this disaster bipartisan, when they should be repudiating it at every turn.

It's worse than that. Allow me to elucidate. The administration tried to get this kind of power authorised - after doing it illegally for years - in '06, in the Republican congress. As an opposition party, the Democrats managed to fight it off. Now, as a majority party in the House, they've passed it. Not only did the Democratic party lose to the weakest Chief Executive since Ford (if not since impeachment-bound Nixon), not only did the DP give him more than the GOP's Leader-followers even asked, not only did the party pretty much let the administration off the hook for the years of illegal wiretaps, but they did the worst thing of all: by making it bipartisan, which is what the House has done, they have institutionalised it. Before, those of us opposed to a King-president - albeit still an elected King-president, but a King-president nonetheless - could undisputedly claim this as a partisan issue. Republicans supported it to save their disaster of a chief executive; the Democrats opposed. It wasn't institutionalised. Now it is. From now on, opposing this is a purely outsider viewpoint.

Sure, it passed with only a minourity of Democrats supporting it. So fucking what? That doesn't matter. The Democrats in power are apparently even less effective than the Democrats out of power, and have made a disastrous blunder of epic proportions. Before, I referred to the Democrats as "slightly less horrible." That's still true. But how, in power, and from a standpoint of actual action, they've made the situation even worse.

So, given that, why the hell am I supposed to support "even worse" over "horrible?" When they fail to do stuff and talk about their razor-thin demi-majority in the Senate, that's one thing. But this is different. This is actively passing law. Unconstitutional law, in by very clear opinion, but law nonetheless. So I say it again: given more power, the Democrats got even less effective.

And telling me to look at all the "progress" Democrats are making here is like telling me to look at all the "Progress" the Bush administration is making in Iraq. Yay, they built a hospital. It's really nice. Oh look, too bad the national government has collapsed and doesn't even have control of its capital. But it's a nice hospital!

This is why we need new parties. This deck has to be reshuffled.

Once again: Completely hostile media environment. The whole proposition of GWBush being a "straight shooter" is entirely a product of media framing.

I'm tired of the Democratic whining. I'm sick of it. The Democrats face a hostile media. Big fucking deal. I'm more than aware of the situation; the DC media, in particular, are the Court at Versailles. But if you think they have it bad, you no idea what a hostile media really is. Go on, please do tell the queer rights activist about the mean, hostile media. Let me know when the MSM will air opposition figures describing your existence as a threat to western civilisation - people who call for you to be illegal - and generally be okay with that. Or hell, when they put references to your "Presidential candidates" in scare-quotes. I mean, even here in Seattle, we get that kind of crap now:



Maybe my "partner" and I will pretend to be a "family" someday. Wouldn't that be "fun."

We fight that kind of crap every day, and get this - despite that, we're winning. Slowly. Painfully. But winining. And winning, I might add, with damned little if any help from the national Democratic Party, who mostly tells us to give money and hopes we'll shut up. In fact, as far as I can tell, the closer queer rights groups get aligned with the Democratic Party - Human Rights Campaign, I'm looking in your direction - the less effective they get.

Look, I'm a veteran of these ground wars. Do you remember the four big anti-gay measures here in the 1990s that failed? Do you know why during the 608 and 610 ground campaigns didn't get to use their Paul Cameron lies dressed as science and statistics? Do you know why their usual rhetoric did not get the carte blanche it usually did, and often still does? Do you know why the media just didn't go ahead and print that crap routinely, like they used to?

Because I did the groundwork for the media. The papers had already started printing some of the fundamentalist anti-gay propaganda unchallenged, before the campaign even got started, and they were certainly still operating from the standpoint that "Christian" always and forever equals "Good" and "Truthful." So I did the investigative work they should've done but weren't doing. I documented the fuck out of the fundamentalist rhetoric and source-material lies. I handed off half-inch thick packets of material, with executive summaries, explanations of terminology, references, documentation - the whole nine yards of stuff they should have been doing, but couldn't be bothered to do. It was bulletproof, too, and loaded with primary sources. I stayed on top of them, and every complaint I made was backed with reference material. And I had a little network of people distributing the research I did to other papers.

And the tone of the coverage changed, and we won.

I'm not going to say my work was decisive in that change in coverage tone. I'm not going to say the change in coverage tone was key to winning, but it sure didn't hurt. I wasn't 'best buds' with any of the reporters and I wanted no credit because that would have meant they had to reject my material. None of what I gave needed to end up in print, so I wasn't even an anonymous source; I just showed them the background, and the lies. I was a research grunt, volunteer and unpaid. I've kept my mouth shut about it for over ten years for those very same reasons - but I imagine at this point everybody involved as moved on, at least, from a thought standpoint. The situation has improved. (Yes, even with crap like that Times headline, it's better than it used to be.) Besides, every shred of material I provided was 100% true.

So the Democrats have very little idea how hostile media can be. I do. And also, the Republicans do. They've made a religion out of it. (Like they do with everything, these days...)

So how do does the GOP handle this? Like me, and like GBLT organisations often do, they do the work of the reporters for them. They give them the story, they give them the background, they give them the material, they do the research; they make it as easy as possible for the reporters to tell the story their way. And I'm not talking press releases and speeches, I'm talking about research, I'm talking about background, I'm talking about materials at every level. Similarly, I'm not talking about Limbaugh and I'm not talking about O'Reilly and I'm not talking about Hannity; I'm talking about the party working this way at every level. And they've been doing it for... I don't even know. A long, long time.

The Democrats have never managed to catch on to that. I don't know why. I don't even care why; I more just care that they fail. Glenn Greenwald is good at exposing the bullshit post-press in the DC press corps - demonstrating that they effectively have no memory, that they have no ability to connect obvious dots, demonstrating that they take the past of least resistance at almost every turn - and that's useful. See above for how the GOP uses these attributes; see that usage explained. But the Democratic party has demonstrated no ability to get ahead of that curve.

Even we "diseased, perverted" queers have managed more in this than has the Democratic Party, in the face of a far more hostile press. Maybe the Democrats should take some notes.

Comments

long-winded response, part the first

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I totally understand what you're saying, but I also understand the other point of view.

The reality is that political parties are always going to be compromised compared to grassroots political activists on specific issues, and it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. In our first-past-the-post system, political parties are coalitions of interests that have to be wary of helping one faction without alienating as many people or more from another faction.

You're coming at this from the perspective of an activist. Though your interests are not narrow, they tend to organize around a constellation of key civil and human rights, particularly those that affect you directly. That means that you can focus on those issues without fully considering the underlying political realities.

For real change to happen in this country, we have always needed a combination of committed activism and support from the political mainstream. It is one of the key roles of activists to keep the political mainstream aware and accountable to the issues that they know so well that can be overlooked in the broad coalition of the major parties. To expect the party to do the work of the activists is unrealistic. The only way that has ever happened is when issue activists become party activists, and remade the party on their terms (as happended with the GOP and its activists).

The problem with third parties is that they must either supplant or remake an existing mainstream party, or else act as spoilers. A third party run activist-style will never achieve major party status, so it can only help by influencing an existing party. A third party can only justify its efforts if there is no means by which to influence an existing party to enact its agenda. There has to be a clear ideological break that makes both mainstream parties unacceptable.


The Democratic Party of the Clinton years was a party of decay, robbed of its vitality as aging liberals were pushed aside by the corporate-money DLC. There was little path for expression of dissent, and Clinton was attacking the party from within. Activists were either co-opted or left out in the cold. The marginal support for Nader was based on these conditions.

Those conditions no longer apply. Howard Dean has actually remade the party, and the DLC is on the outs. The party activists are much friendlier to the larger activist community. While the party activists are not usually the same people as the issue activists and are often party before principle Democrats on the Kos model, they listen and often respond positively to the activist community.

The result is a party that's moving in the right direction, but far too slowly and cautiously. It has always been thus. Look at the African American civil rights movement. It has existed since the end of slavery. After the failure of Reconstruction, it first gained momentum during FDR's administration, particularly in the aftermath of WWII. It took ten years for Brown vs. Board of Education (itself 50-60 years past Plessy v. Ferguson), and ten more for the Civil Rights Act. There have been many gains but also many failures since, but the most obvious aspects of legal segregation weren't discarded until the 1970s. This took committed action by activists for decades, with the Democratic Party often leading the way against the reforms. The party's final acceptance of civil rights was a major factor, along with the Vietnam War, in the subsequent decline of the party and the rise of the neo-conservatives, supply-siders, and theocons that bedevil us today. In fact, many of the same people who opposed the black civil rights movement (or their ideological descendants) are obstacles to full civil rights for gays and lesbians today.

...and part two

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

As slow as things seem to be going, they're moving much more quickly than they did a generation or so ago, and one of the key differences is the Democratic Party. The overt bigots are mostly in the other party. The DP's rank-and-file are predominanty supportive. They also predominantly oppose the sponginess on civil liberties and oppose the war. But the nature of the party is to be cautious in doing the right thing too quickly, because the country as a whole is conservative and capable of lashing back if change is too sudden. It's possible to be disgusted with the lack of progress in Congress while still appreciative that the Democrats as a party (and most Democratic elected officials) overwhelmingly support the right policies, but just can't get past the legislative gridlock. For that to happen will require a transformation of public opinion, which happens bit by bit. Yes, it's tiresome to whine about the media, but that doesn't mean that the Democrats can just will the media coverage to change either.

In the meantime, the best thing you can do other than your current activism is to help elect Democrats who support the right things on key issues, as well as electing good judges at the state level. You've got one of the best Congressional representatives on civil liberties and gay and lesbian issues, Jay Inslee. Our Senators are both supportive. Getting a Democrat in the nearby 8th district would be an important victory. Providing assistance to Democrats in key races who are likely to vote the right way and will listen to activists is also key, as it will help build a progressive majority that can overcome conservatives in Congress, particularly in the Senate. Of course, a sympathetic Democratic president is an absolute necessity if you want to avoid a presidential veto that overturns the Democratic majority, and if s/he is elected with activist support the chance that the new president will remain sympathetic under political pressure is much higher. A Democratic president is also necessary to block and hopefully begin reversing the rightward slide of the federal courts.

Re: ...and part two

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

As slow as things seem to be going, they're moving much more quickly than they did a generation or so ago, and one of the key differences is the Democratic Party.

Are you speaking purely with regards to a particular issue? Because it looks to me like things are actively moving *backwards* with regards to choice/reproductive freedom, and avoiding a surveillance society, and on the environment. The democrats are quite good at paying lip-service to the latter two issues (getting ever shakier on the first one), but the majority don't seem willing to really risk much of . . . anything.

And while I agree gay rights are moving forwards in society as a whole, I don't see that the Dems are doing so much on this front. Yes, most favor civil unions, but in 2000 Gore favored gay marriage, not just civil unions; I don't think any major candidate has since, despite overall more favorable views on this from the general public, nor has anyone made as dramatic a gesture as Clinton *initially* did in trying to allow gays to openly serve in the military (granted, he backed off this w/out much--any--of a fight).

Clinton did some awful things--the telecommunications deregulation act topping the list--but also plenty of good, and I would love for one of the current candidates to show as much courage and resourcefulness under pressure as he had (part of this was better media coverage that gave him a better chance, but part of it was also that he was better at using the media than candidates since).

Finally, while I'm likely to vote for whoever the Dems put up for prez in part for the reasons you mention, that doesn't mean I feel the same way about House/Senate/state candidates. I'd already defected from voting for Feinstein before this latest fiasco.

Re: ...and part two

[wrog]

Feinstein needed to be primaried a long time ago. Even if CA is not as blue as CT, it still ought to be doable with the right candidate.

But the critical thing is the state and local elections. Good candidates have to come from somewhere. You need people serving on city/county councils, state leg, building up experience so that they can make credible runs at higher office. That's why the local Democratic party organization matters. Take that over, endorse candidates and elect state party reps who reflect your values.

It's a long-term game, to be sure, but it's no less work than creating a new party will be -- never mind that in the process of creating a new party, you're going to have to win over all of the same people anyway, so...

Re: ...and part two

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Civil rights (for gay people) are moving in a positive direction more quickly now than other civil rights efforts did in the past. While the Democrats have been mixed on marriage equality (Gore opposed marriage equality in 2000, by the way, but may have changed his mind since), they aren't in direct opposition to increased rights in general, as both parties were in direct opposition in the past. It's still slow with a lot of setbacks and continued demonization in the media, but the overall trend to me looks promising.

On the other issues you mention, the Democratic response has not been good, but it hasn't been good for a long time. Gore's actual environmental record as VP was middling at best, and he's the best of the lot (post-2000 Gore would be better). The failures on reproductive freedom are mainly failures of rhetoric rather than resolve, and the rightward slant of the courts is the big problem there. There should be more outrage against wiretapping and torture, and that's where I most mad with the elected party leadership, but the post-9/11 media climate and the Republican minority and Bush's veto make any real change on that front difficult.

On the environment, I see hope. The presidential candidates all take climate change seriously, and most have comprehensive energy plans. They'll all appoint the right kinds of judges to protect reproductive freedom, though it may be too late. So to me it all hinges on what they do about the erosion of the Constitution and the normalization of torture, surveillance, and the unitary executive. I don't think we can know until they're in the majority and there's a Democratic President, but I think there's a fighting chance they'll do the right thing. The best thing that could happen on that front would be impeachment hearings, starting with Gonzales and then moving to Cheney and Bush. Things are moving slowly in that direction. We'll see.

addendum

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I should add another point about actually joining the party. I recognize that you disagree with some of the other prevailing policies of the party, particularly on gun rights, the proper amount of government involvement in the economy, and so on. The Republican Party that you say has done such a good job controlling the media narrative has been successful in large part because competing activist factions agreed to put aside their differences and focus on a common agenda. So, the theocons dropped their previous support of left-leaning economic policies, the libertopian supply-siders dropped their liberal social policies, and the neocons jumped on board so long as everyone was willing to downplay their previous isolationism and embrace a hypermilitary interventionist policy and trade their old right-wing anti-Semitism for right-wing Zionism.

For the Democrats to hone their media message to the same degree, they might have to make similar compromises. The question is whether that's worth it (I doubt it). What other beliefs would you put aside for tactical reasons to help the party move forward on the issues most important to you? If you really want the Democrats to be less squishy, then you want to see the activists and party regulars put aside key parts of their agendas in order to make peace and help everyone get enough of their agenda to make the deal worthwhile. If you're not willing to consider those compromises, then you might appreciate the difficulties of message cohesion within the Democratic Party. If your key issues are worth compromising on less important issues, it's worth considering what compromises you'd be willing to make, and then start making deals. It's exactly this tactical compromise by Democrats that is often called into question by outsiders to the party, who mistake it for lack of principles.

My experience of the party is that even people who basically agree often can't agree. The party needs more parliamentarians and more people willing to compromise on tactics, without compromising on key principles. (Two hours to finalize the wording of an anti-war resolution that has unanimous support in principle? Yeah.) It needs experienced and hardnosed activists who can kindly call bullshit.

Re: addendum

[mojave-wolf.livejournal.com]

As someone who is registered "independent" but is actually to the left of the democrats on most things (guns/self defense in general being an exception, I'm w/solarbird there, for the most part, I think), let me give you my own outsider perspective on this -- the Dems appear to be trying to make similar compromises, and moving themselves far rightward in the process. They are asking us pro-choice types to give the anti-choice types a big hug, and this is an issue where we are still the majority. It's a more tenuous and nuanced majority than it used to be, though, and to a great degree I blame the Democrats for being publicly unwilling to defend this position with much passion, while being quite willing to embrace opposing viewpoints as reasonable. People who don't bother to think about/inform themselves much tend to split the difference between what they hear, and that median keeps moving rightward. I would also say that this has been equally true of economic issues, though it is nice to finally see a bit of a change on this thanks to Kucinich and Edwards and general public outrage at the world we are stuck living in. In other words, for too long and still, the Dems seem to *be* compromising on key principles. Hell, most of them supported the Iraq invasion for what still looks like pure cowardice, and they keep showing manifestations of this (the majority may not have voted for the wiretapping provisions just passed, but they sure as hell didn't try their damnedest to stop it, either; and from my p.o.v. these things I'm discussing are ALL about as basic as principles get).

Let them start standing up for key principles and appearing at least competent in their tactics, and I'll shut up and get in line. Hell, I rabidly supported Kerry simply because I wanted rid of Bush and company *that badly*. Right now, I'm not confidence about either their key principles (even those like Edwards who are currently saying most of the right things) OR their tactics.

Re: addendum

[wrog]

The problem with abortion is that the anti-choicers are winning the framing battle.

And people like Dennis Kucinich, a devout Cathoic who is ostensibly "pro-choice" but constantly reinforces the right-wing frame and cut the legs out from under the pro-choice position every chance he gets, are actually a huge part of the problem. (it's actually worse in his case, because he's otherwise ostensibly liberal, so statements of this sort are much stronger coming from him...)

You cannot blame the Democratic Party for this.

Re: addendum

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

Well, the Democrats at the national level have been moving rightward for a long time, going back at least to 1972 and the huge loss to Nixon. Carter was a Southern moderate, Mondale was his establishment VP, Dukakis was a moderate who ran on competency rather than liberal policies and allowed the word "liberal" to be turned into an insult. Clinton triangulated the party ever-rightward and ensconced the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) in power. Gore was another Southern moderate.

I actually think the tide began to turn in 2004. Kerry was a moderate, but no worse than Gore and arguably better and more liberal on many issues (though he ran, poorly, on his military record). The Howard Dean voters began infusing the local party with more energy, and if anything there's been a leftward drift since. Pelosi is an improvement over Gephardt, and Harry Reid is an improvement over Tom Daschle. It's true that (Hillary) Clinton is more conservative than Kerry, but Obama is more liberal, and Edwards is running to the left even though he was a moderate Senator. Even if Hillary wins the nomination, the bulk of the party rank-and-file are more liberal, and that will help to keep her from repeating Bill's triangulations and betrayals.

There's a lot of damage done by the war, by the attack on the Constitution in the supposed effort to fight terrorists, by domestic policies ranging from energy policy to the environment to failure to respond to Katrina. Democrats aren't doing nearly enough, but they're doing better than they did the last time they had a majority, and they could do better if they had a Democratic president. It's just that the damage is so much that the lack of action and resolve is that much clearer. I think there's an opportunity for the Democrats to stand on principle, but they're going to need broad public support and pressure. We need to make them better, by both criticizing them when they do the wrong thing and standing behind them when they do the right thing. Giving up on them altogether will just squander our opportunity and give the Democrats no option but to move rightward yet again.

[wrog]

I'll concede (and would have conceded right from the beginning) that there are plenty of groups out there that have it plenty worse than the Democrats. That doesn't matter.

My point about the media was

1. by way of explanation not excuse as to why we have elected officials who vote the way they do, i.e., that there's a media narrative and either they're buying into it or they're afraid their constituents are buying into it, and it simply does not matter what the party/leadership tells them to do; they will not commit what they see as political suicide -- not an excuse; yes, somebody needs to beat them over the head or they need to be primaried; yes the FISA bill is a 1st-order, collosal fuckup for all of the reasons you say; and yes I would like way more effective leadership
   
   
2. by way of warning that one not be buying into it oneself (e.g., by repeating easily disprovable canards like "The Democratic Party doesn't stand for anything" [check out the platform sometime],"Bush is a straight-shooter; Kerry was a useless flip-flopper" [try telling that to the folks who ran BCCI]) and playing into the narrative, i.e., supporting the idea that both parties are hopelessly corrupt, because this is what They want. I.e., if you're not going to vote Republican, They want you to give up and stay home (or, better yet, throw your effort into a new party that will remain mired in 1%-Land while siphoning off critical votes in close states).

With respect to (1), we are saddled with a number of DLC dinosaurs (both electeds and consultants) who still think it's 1992 (or 1968, pick your poison) and it doesn't take very many of them to screw the pooch when the majority is narrow and the other party has the absolute discipline that it does -- I mean, fuck, why does somebody like Lincoln Chaffee or Susan Collins continue to vote lockstep with the Republican leadership even when it should be absolute political suicide for them to do so (as events have borne out in at least one case)?

There's also the Small Matter of representatives from conservative areas who simply will not vote with us on certain issues. Again,... doesn't take very many of them to screw the pooch when the majority is narrow and the other party has the discipline that it does. Given our system the way it is, what do we do? Kick them out and not be a majority anymore (and hence no power to do anything)?

New parties will not solve this problem because any new party still has to deal with the same groups of voters, will still have to make the same kinds of compromises if it wants to have any hope of achieving a majority.

(cont.)

[wrog]

With respect to (2), you have to be very clear on what "The Democratic Party" is and what it is not, or more generally what political parties can and cannot do in the current system.

You, say, for example, that the GOP does all of the research and presents reporters with all of the information they need to tell the story their way.

Not true; or rather, it's not the Republican party that does this.

The actual work in question is done by a network of conservative think-tanks -- Scaife, Moon, et al spending hundreds of millions over a period of decades to set this stuff up, and it's now paying off in spades. To be fair, we're not totally starting from scratch on our side of the fence -- there have always been sympathetic academics (now bloggers) willing to work for free, and when you're dealing stuff that's actually true, lots of otherwise neutral institutions will have helpful material available. But it still has to be dug out and we have a huge chunk of infrastructure missing --- or prior infrastructure that's been subverted (cf. government agencies) --- that needs to be funded somehow.

Which is not a whine, simply a statement of fact. The Democratic Party doesn't even begin to have the resources to do this (WSDCC budget is on the order of $2E6, DNC has a bit more to play with but not that much); this is far beyond the scope of what the party can do.

Which is not to say that "the party" can't be a far more effective consumer of information -- I'll readily agree there's lots of room for improvement here -- but this brings up another issue,

... namely that the ultimate consumer here is really the candidate/elected, i.e., the one who has the cameras pointed at him, having to figure out how to deflect the slanted questions in real time.

Keep in mind party can't do squat unless somebody decides to run. Deciding to run is a major proposition; you pretty much have to be a millionaire; you have to be willing to put your life in a fishbowl and so on. You assemble a campaign staff, hire consultants, write speeches, make billions of phone calls asking for money -- you have to do all of this yourself in order to even get on the party's radar as a credible candidate.

Which is not to say that the party doesn't have resources/leverage. You won't get an endorsement unless you hold the right positions. Getting the endorsement gives you credibility, opens up the party's db, the various streams of donors, and the precinctfolk willing to walk the neighborhoods for you. There's a huge logistical advantage in having the party behind you.

But the quid pro quo is very indirect. Once they're elected, it's a whole new game; they're the incumbent now. Rick Larson votes for the Bankruptcy Bill. Maria Cantwell refuses to acknowledge her Iraq war authorization vote was a mistake; votes for cloture on the Alito nomination. What do we do? Disown them? What purpose would it have served to have Mike McGavick as our Senator?

If what they do is serious enough, yes -- hard decision to make sometimes, other times less so.

Connecticut Democratic Party told Lieberman to stuff it; now when he appears on Fox News it has to be "I-CT" not "D-CT". That's a big deal. Yes it would have been better if Lamont had won, if fucking Bill Clinton hadn't continued to assert on TV that everything would be fine no matter who won, if Harry Reid hadn't promised him he could keep his chairmanships --- did I say I would like better leadership?

New parties will not solve any of these problems.

A Green Party incumbent can get just as easily get out of touch. Of course, if the best they can do is Aaron Dixon, they're never going to get a chance to find that out. Their best shot was Nader, who was out-of-touch in the first place.

Even the leadership issue is an orthogonal matter; if there really is somebody out there who's going to be that effective, it'll be a lot less work for them to make it to the top of the Democratic establishment as slog it out at the head of a new party.